


You're Okay

by allergic__to__people



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Heavy Angst, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Hunter Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, No Beta- We Die Like All Our Favorite Characters, Out of Character, Sad Dean Winchester, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:15:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allergic__to__people/pseuds/allergic__to__people
Summary: Dean raises his head. Forces himself to keep looking into those eyes, half-lidded and dimmer than he’s ever seen them. There’s fear there and that, more than anything, is what makes it final, what makes itreal.This is happening.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Kudos: 17





	You're Okay

**Author's Note:**

> In case you just skimmed over the tags – and to avoid confusion. Cas is human. He and Dean were on a hunt together and got separated. Probably a least slightly out of character.  
> FYI – As the world end by Matt Maltese was on repeat while I wrote this - In case anyone wanted to know...  
> Good Luck...

“You’re okay,” Cas liked to say a lot. Dean doesn’t know when the habit started, but it must have born sometime after they started becoming friends, after they started confiding in each other.  
He had this way of saying it, too – mouth all soft, his eyes an image of sincerity no matter the situation – but it’s mostly the wording that Dean’s hung up on.

_You’re_ okay, not _it’s_ okay.

“You’re okay,” his friend would tell him, firm yet gentle, his hand a steady weight on Dean’s slumped shoulder. He couldn’t explain it, there was just _something_ about it. Dean could be on his knees, body heavier than stone and his vision spotted with black dots, the weight of the world on his shoulder and the feeling too heavy to bear, but all he’d need to do is look into those bright blue eyes, hear those words and he would _believe._

_You’re okay._ Cas would make it so. He always would. No doubt about that.

“You’re okay,” he said with soft eyes and a tender voice when Dean almost messed up on a hunt and was so angry with himself, he could’ve taken a swing at anyone and anything close enough, or perhaps try and find solace at the bottom of the bottle once again, if not for the steadying hands wrapped around his arms, keeping him afloat as they always had.

“You’re okay,” he said, the moment Dean opened his eyes to the bright light and pale walls of a hospital room, days after a hunt gone sideways. He’d fractured his collarbone and shattered his left arm, but his other hand was free for Cas to clasp in both of his, saying it over and over like he couldn’t believe it himself. _You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay_. Not even the ebb and flow of doctors, nurses, strangers visiting the other patients in his room could stop the tears from running down his cheeks that afternoon.

“You’re okay,” he said months later when Dean had fumbled and stuttered, choking on his feelings as they were lying on the hood of the Impala, looking at the stars like they did on so many nights. Dean had been wanting, _aching,_ too terrified to reach out and yet not willing to do nothing any longer, but it was stupid because Cas always met him halfway, didn’t he?

“You’re okay,” he said, his voice tinny through the phone but sincere as always, after someone had died on Dean’s solo hunt, the one he had called a milk-run and that _he_ had dubbed a solo hunt himself. They were an hour apart, Cas staying at the bunker take a small break and catch some much needed rest after his last hunt, but he’d been at Dean’s motel door within two hours, that soft smile on his face, the one that he gave Dean, and Dean only, along with a warm embrace and two slices of pie that he just _knows_ came from that bakery close to the bunker that he absolutely loves.

“You’re okay,” he said, when Dean’s plan to quietly slip into bed after another though hunt was failed by a lonely sock on the floor. Sleep had been heavy in Cas’s voice, but he still reached out in the dark to press his lips against Dean’s temple.

_He’s okay,_ Dean knew, because Cas made it so.

Now those lips are curved into a shaky smile, quivering as he says it again. “You’re okay,” he tells Dean, and there are tears of relief in his eyes and there’s dust and blood and grime in his hair. His hand settles on Dean’s cheek, cold beneath the slick warm blood. There’s more of it smeared on his cheeks in the shape of dragging fingers, more seeping into the tan colored trench coat where he’d been slashed in his arms and legs. But Dean knows the worst of it is his stomach. He’d been pressing his hands against it when Dean found him and fell to his knees beside him.

Dean’s mind races to find ways to help, to _fix this,_ but his mind is blank. There’s no angel that would want to help them, no way to summon a demon, or any other creature quick enough to save Cas. His chest feels like a vacuum and -

“Dean, my love, _breathe_ ,” Cas tells him. “You’re okay.”

-and Dean’s never hated those words as much as he does at this moment.

“Shut up,” he says, draws in a breath, and then snarls it for good measure, “ _Shut up_.”

This can’t be happening. There’s so much fucking _blood._ His best friend, his partner, his sunshine, his _everything_ , is – he’s – and it’s-

Cas lifts his other hand to Dean’s face, puling him down closer to where he’s lying half-propped up against a grimy old wall. Dean resists, tries to reach out with his own hands to Cas’s middle – _pressure, he needs to apply pressure_ \- but he’s thwarted by a tut of disapproval. Hands – bloody and crooked and so, so familiar – pull at him, and Dean has no choice but to follow.

“Cas, I need to – “

“Dean, it’s okay.” The point of contact between their foreheads is damp and gritty. Dean can feel Cas’s stuttering breaths on his own mouth, but he’s still smiling. How is he still smiling? “Just breathe for me, okay?”

“I can’t – “ His sunshine is dying, and he’s supposed to _just breathe_? _How can he?_

“Shhh. I know you can. Deep breaths, my love.”

“Cas, listen to me- “

“Hey, I said it’s okay, didn’t I?”

“ _It’s not okay!_ ” Dean nearly screams, but his voice sounds like crushed glass, and his eyes are burning. “How is _any_ of this okay? You’re bleeding out and I’m – I’m _useless._ I can’t help you.”

Not with that pole carving a straight path from his back to his stomach. Not when it took Dean nearly an hour to find him- and that’s with him being the _closest._ There’s no one else nearby who can lend a hand. There can’t be because they’d already be here if that were the case, he can’t handle the thought, the small possibility that someone would let his sunshine die.

“I’m glad, that’s it’s you who found me,” Cas whispers after Dean screams himself hoarse with pleas for help, hands useless around the metal protrusion bleeding the life out of his best friend. “Always the first one to help me, to _believe_ in me.” He actually sounds happy, and Dean hates everything about it.

“Shut up,” Dean whispers back, keeping his hands steady even as his vision wavers.

“I’m really glad. _Thank you._ ”

“I said _shut up_.”

Cas _laughs_. He fucking laughs. “Hey,” he calls, “look at me.” Then, he whispers “Please?”

Dean can’t stand to look at him, can’t stand the pallor of his skin nor that awful smile that’s still fucking there. It makes his ribs ache and his skin crawl, dread like none he’s ever felt before welling up from the pits of his stomach to his throat. He hates it. He absolutely _hates_ it, but he does it anyways because he knows he’ll hate himself even more if he doesn’t.

Dean looks up just in time to watch a tear slide out of Cas’s left eye and trickle down to the curve of his mouth. His hands clench around Dean’s face to hide their shaking, as he says with halting breaths, “You’ve made me really h-happy, you know. You’re my – my best friend.”

Dean stills. “Don’t. Please don’t do this Cas.”

“It’s okay.” Another gasp. A thumb brushing against the bottom edge of a twenty-year-old scar. “Y-you’re okay.”

“ _Stop saying that!”_

“I’m really- I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“I swear, Cas, if you don’t – “

The chuckle that cuts him off is frail, muddled with unshed tears. It’s a mockery of all the times Dean watched him double over with laughter, joy a physical think leaking out of his eyes, the entirety of his body shuddering with it. And Dean has always been right there beside him, laughing along and wondering what he did to deserve suck luck, beauty and strength personified.

Now dean wonders if this is always how it was going to end.

“You know, I really thought – “Cas gulps, “- we had more time.” His left hand slips off Dean’s cheek, but Dean catches it at the wrist, counts the pulses with his trembling, bloody fingers. “Stay with me?” he asks.

Dean could scream.

Instead, he nods and lets Cas guide his head down to his chest, crooked fingers too weak to do anything but settle in Dean’s hair. His ear is pressed against the spot right above where Cas’s heart continues to fight, stubborn as the man that holds it but growing weaker by the minute. Dean zeroes in on the sound, not wanting to miss a beat.

“I love you.”

Dean squeezes his eyes shut, clenches his fists around Cas’s trench coat. _Pleasepleasepleaseplease –_

“Can you… can you please say it back?”

Dean can’t fucking _breathe_.

“Dean – “

“-I love you. You know I do.” _You bastard. I love you goddammit, so where do you think you’re going?_

Cas’s chest rises in a shuddering sigh. Dean can’t see his face, but he knows he’s smiling.

“I’ll never forgive you,” Dean tells him.

“I know.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.” His fingers card through Dean’s hair, just once. “I’m – I’m sorry.”

Dean raises his head. Forces himself to keep looking into those eyes, half-lidded and dimmer than he’s ever seen them. There’s fear there and that, more than anything, is what makes it final, what makes it _real._

_This is happening._

He cradles Cas’s face; their foreheads meet, so close their mouths are just about touching.

_I’m going to lose him._

Gathering as much air and courage as he can, Dean whispers, “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You’re okay.”

Cas sobs, “ _Dean,_ I…”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Dean thumbs the tears away, presses their lips together. “You’re okay, sunshine.”

“ _I-I love you.”_

“Shhh, you’re okay.”

He repeats it until the man beneath him goes still and cold, long after the silence’s been splintered by the sound of his heaving breaths and broken sobs. He doesn’t stop, not even when Sam finds them hours later, the thrill of victory – of another hunt accomplished and of his brother and friend finally found wiped clean from his expression at the sight of Dean and the body he held tight in his arms. There are sharp intakes of breath, a voice letting out a guttural swear, and then gentle hands on his arms and shoulders. He hates it – every cell in his body rebels against it – but he lets them guide him away anyway.

All the while, Dean hears it. Amidst all the shock and grief, his voice still stands out.

_You’re okay,_ the voice keeps telling him, warm and sure, urging him to keep moving. Like it’s a given, an irrevocable truth, that Dean is going to pick up all his pieces and rise once again.

But how can he be okay, when all of his pieces lay behind him with the very man who used to make it so?


End file.
